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Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

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Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#301

Post by grandalf »

ProblemFactory wrote: post #238
chii wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your value isn't set by your own standards - your value is what someone else will pay you for your time! I.e., the opportunity cost of leisure is the value of leisure.

It's more complex than that. People on salary earn a fixed amount per month - they don't get paid extra if they work an hour longer in the evening instead of shopping. People on most hourly jobs have their schedule set by their manager. They can't pick up an extra hour of work unless their manager has some to offer, and not at the time of their own choosing. People working on their own businesses have an even less di…

> For everyone else, the opportunity cost of leisure time is close to 0, but they might be willing to pay for services for other reasons.

If you define leisure time as the time not spent in paid employment, the opportunity cost of leisure time is actually very high, since each of us has many unpaid tasks that we must do to keep our lives going (such as keeping the living space tidy, stocking the fridge with food, obtaining clothing, etc.)

If we opt for "leisure" and fail to do these things, the cost of rectifying the situation increases.

I think a more accurate way to look at it is that most of us have paid labor (hourly or salaried) and a lot of unpaid labor that we need to do to keep our lives in order. Things like chores, maintenance of our living space, etc.

Leisure time is actually what is left only after we've done all of the paid labor our job demands AND all of this unpaid labor.

For some people, this leaves very little leisure time, but it may leave some extra money that can be allocated to hiring out some of those unpaid tasks in exchange for more time available to do whatever else.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#302

Post by pshposh »

soheil wrote: post #291
mathgeek wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want this service to exist so I don't have to feel like a chimp in a grocery store with a basket going from aisle to aisle in fact why do I even need to justify why I want it to exist? You're asking why you need to justify paying someone else to "feel like a chimp" so that you don't have to?

They may not feel like a chimp and also I like to be the kind of chimp best referred to as a code monkey, thank you! And what makes you think grocery stores with all their deceitful marketing will exist as we know them today? If everyone is a worker for Instacart shopping on behalf of someone else the stores will have to adapt and there won't be any point of distracting those workers with random product placements fo…

Grocery stores will be redesigned to accommodate personal shoppers just like cities were redesigned around the Segway. If the Segway or personal shoppers were free you might have an argument.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#303

Post by Chris2048 »

tptacek wrote: post #298
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #5

> Instead of the tipping option appearing on the checkout page as it originally had, a default 10 percent “service fee” sat in its place. If I could take a guess, I'd say this is more related to the user experience. I hate tipping. I'd rather just attach a 10-20% fee instead of needlessly evaluating someone else's performance with every delivery. Or better yet, I'd rather just use a company that adequately pays its o…

That's because you're doing it wrong. Don't evaluate their performance. Consider the tip a "variable buyer price-sensitivity upcharge". You're comfortable paying 20%. Me too. So: just always pay 20%, without thinking about it. That's in fact the actual economic purpose of the tip anyways. People think it's to encourage good service, but in fact, in jobs where you can make significant money tipping, there's already co…

> variable buyer price-sensitivity

Just go to cheaper places if you are 'price-sensitive'. Arguing 'there's already competition' doesn't make sense, it isn't a binary thing.

Are you arguing that if you can afford to pay more, you should? Isn't that socialism? This isn't how capitalism is supposed to work.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#304

Post by Chris2048 »

b3lvedere wrote: post #211
eridius wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, for pizza places that charge a delivery fee, most of the time that does not go to the driver. You should still tip your driver.

Which is the problem in the first place. Why are we taught by people to tip some personell and not to tip others? Because the first group has a very low income. That's why. Because corporations cannot be trusted to treat their people nicely. That's why. Because the first group usually works hard and shows effort, while the others don't. That's why. I don't mind to tip when someone has done an excellent service, but i…

> Because the first group has a very low income

That's the incentive to work hard so that you are not part of that group. That group doesn't have much to offer, and often didn't work hard to offer anything society valued. I knew, from an early age, that the consequence of not trying at school was ending up in a dead-end job.

> Because the first group usually works hard and shows effort, while the others don't

Citation needed - their work is hard because they have little leverage. Some have the deck stacked against them, fair enough, but that first group exists in places with less opportunity inequality, and far more welfare than in the US.

Many people spend most of their lives on their careers, trying to improve their worth to society, and offer things deemed valuable. Few go into accounting for the love of it, but because society desires accountants.

EDIT: there are exceptions. Temporary jobs held by students, people from impoverished backgrounds, or who were never motivated to succeed, low-skilled immigrants that fall into these last two categories. These are exceptional, sympathetic situations (except students, their condition is temporary), but society should seek to reduce these groups, rather than normalise them by developing some kind of coping mechanism. Welfare is a good safety net for all citizens, but low-paid work is too. The problem is groups who are stuck in ow-paid work with little opportunity to escape; in those cases it's not "greedy" corporations to do anything - it's exclusively the governments role to participate in any social engineering efforts.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#305

Post by TheOneTrueKyle »

harryh wrote: post #256
baby wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always tip a fixed 5$ if you get a good service, why tipping if you don't get a good service though?

Cultural norms in the US are different from those where you grew up. Service employees earn a much greater percentage of their income from tips here than they do there.

This mentality is most likely why I usually never tip.

There are people out there that honestly think this is normal behavior. Hey your experience was terrible, but have this $5 your don't deserve.

I live in the US and only tip when service is good.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#306

Post by TheOneTrueKyle »

hfsktr wrote: post #259
leesalminen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5 on a $100 bill? In the US? That's awful.

I usually tip % but I don't go to eat at places with such high bills. I can understand the logic though of a fixed tip. There are all kinds of situations where a server spends the same amount of time/effort for each table and get different tips based on what the person ate? Why does that make sense that I would tip more because I got a steak instead of a burger and the server had to just bring it to me in either case…

Then that should be apart of the price of the meal.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#307

Post by dang »

MegaButts wrote: post #181
grandalf wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the problem is they get traction by operating at a loss, so when they try to run profitably they inevitably fail as people bawk at the prices. Well, in a competitive environment like Uber vs Lyft, both companies subsidize the service to the benefit of the customers (and employees) in an attempt to maximize market share. There is a lot to gain by becoming the market leader in a service like ride sharing or groce…

You clearly like Instacart, and that's fine, but I strongly disagree with you that they've built something better than the grocery store. For starters, right now they depend on grocery stores existing for their business, otherwise they are exactly like WebVan. Also, grocery shopping is nothing like postal delivery. You don't choose what mail you want, you just take everything that's addressed to you. Obviously this v…

> you sound like a shill

This isn't allowed here, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#308

Post by eridius »

b3lvedere wrote: post #211
eridius wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, for pizza places that charge a delivery fee, most of the time that does not go to the driver. You should still tip your driver.

Which is the problem in the first place. Why are we taught by people to tip some personell and not to tip others? Because the first group has a very low income. That's why. Because corporations cannot be trusted to treat their people nicely. That's why. Because the first group usually works hard and shows effort, while the others don't. That's why. I don't mind to tip when someone has done an excellent service, but i…

> and not some weird strange thing like a jar or a fund the corporation came up with.

BTW, if a company puts out a tip jar, by law that tip jar must actually go to the employees. The company cannot come along and take the contents of the jar for itself (and if they try, employees can sue them).

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#309

Post by tptacek »

Chris2048 wrote: post #303
tptacek wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you're doing it wrong. Don't evaluate their performance. Consider the tip a "variable buyer price-sensitivity upcharge". You're comfortable paying 20%. Me too. So: just always pay 20%, without thinking about it. That's in fact the actual economic purpose of the tip anyways. People think it's to encourage good service, but in fact, in jobs where you can make significant money tipping, there's already co…

> variable buyer price-sensitivity Just go to cheaper places if you are 'price-sensitive'. Arguing 'there's already competition' doesn't make sense, it isn't a binary thing. Are you arguing that if you can afford to pay more, you should? Isn't that socialism? This isn't how capitalism is supposed to work.

No, in fact, market segmentation by price sensitivity is a pretty basic mechanism of applied capitalism, taught to basically everyone who has ever taken a marketing class in business school.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#310

Post by RyanZAG »

vinceguidry wrote: post #236
marknutter wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to why you think the world is moving towards liberalism.

Ultimately it's because of the Internet. Sharing of ideas, remixing them, iterating on them, that's all the province of liberalism. Holding on to tradition, resisting modernization, that's conservatism. Liberalism is the rising tide raising all boats. It's always happening, everywhere, behind the scenes, in people's minds. Even the most conservative person has liberal ideas. Liberalism is imperative, conservatism onl…

So Liberalism is good and improves things, and therefore everyone will choose it?

Assuming the first part is true, just becomes something is better does not mean it will be chosen, so I don't think that argument works.

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